MAD writer extraordinaire Desmond Devlin sent me a link recently to this fantastic Flickr “set” entitled “The Art of Jack Davis” which features some great quality scans of about 200 pieces of artwork by one of the greatest cartoonists and illustrators who ever lived. Warning: do NOT click on the above link unless you are prepared to spend at least an hour perusing some little seen gems including album covers, posters, advertising art, MAD work and much more.

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Hope you are well and thanks for link to the man, the legend Jack Davis I didn’t have an hour to spare in my day but once I started looking at the work I quite easily found 2 hours 37 mins (very worthwhile I might add).

There is. It’s called “The Art of Jack Davis” (clever!) but it’s been out of print for a long time. You can sometimes find used copies on amazon and elsewhere. Sadly, the 1987 book is black and white only with porus, poor paper and a bad print quality. Jack’s work deserves so much better. Hopefully a “MAD’s Greatest Artists” book or Jack’s stuff is forthcoming, but even better would be a new “The Art of Jack Davis” in glorious color with about 3 times the amount of work the old one had.

There is also a book called “Some of my Good Stuff” that has a lot of pencil sketches and preliminary work in it that’s worth finding a copy of.

There is a new book of the art of Jack Davis in the works! By a guy by the name of Alex Murawski. He was mentioned in the Staytooned article by Jack himself to editor John Read. Mr. Murawski emailed me back several months ago & said he finally got a publisher on board but it’s a slow process scanning all of Jacks art. But it is happening! I just don’t think Jack Davis will be up to doing book signing’s at his age & health. Sad, because I would have flew to his home state of Georgia just to get his signature but most of all to shake the hand of this creative icon!! Lol, “Staytooned” guys, the bible is on it’s way!

I had the pleasure of meeting Jack at the Orlando Com-Con in 1976 where he signed some of the early issues of MAD that he had done, but better than that, I got him to do a quick caricature of me before he left the meeting and it still hangs in my office as one of my most treasured pieces. Over the years I received numerous pieces that he had done for pharmaceutical companies, advertising their products. He truly will be remembered as one of the greatest cartoonists and illustrators of all time.